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The more of this thread I read, the more I think too much is expected.

My math is horrible, I need a calculator to substantiate my statement. I have driven on average 80K a year for over thirty years. Everything, from pickups to tractor-trailers. I don't even count the time on a motorcycle because that's my time.

Today, I was covering for a friend that was sick and he hauls snow. I guess this load was 40k+ as the truck was a dog and spiking jerked me around pretty good. 3rd low from intersections and I could hear a good bark so I knew I was heavy.

Coming over an overpass, my lane, right hand side, somebody decided it was a good time to pull in front. Binders on, horn full tilt and hung on. Been there, done that, never ended well.

RCMP on my left saw it all.

I did the road rage thing with the horn and the lights. Seconds later, blue and red behind me. I pulled over. I was mad. I went to get out of the truck and the officer pointed at me and said, "stay in your truck".

He went back to his car, a few minutes later, "Driver's License, Registration, Log Book". Nothing pleasant in his tone.

My paperwork is good and he asks me if I knew why he pulled me over. I said, "No". He said if I hadn't pulled my "high school" stunt with the road rage, he would taken the other driver instead for "failure to yield oncoming". Then he said, "I will take an angry driver and make them sit on the side road over stupid. Stupid are easy to catch, you aren't and you are more dangerous."

Wow. The boys with the badge have a tough job and I have to say, after my experience today, I'm going to let them give me s--t and just take it.

Back to my first paragraph, I still have a lot to learn.

1997 R1100RT (Restored Basket Case) , 1981 KZ 440 LTD (Restored Basket Case)
3xR90/6, two just sold, one for a sidecar.
1983 K100RS for winter project, two K's sold and just acquired a very rough R80RT.

Hmmm.....I've run it through two grammar checks and found no issues. What are you questioning? I will admit to often applying PA Dutch grammar and verbiage. But, I'm pretty sure this is real English grammar...

Wow. The boys with the badge have a tough job and I have to say, after my experience today, I'm going to let them give me s--t and just take it.

Back to my first paragraph, I still have a lot to learn.

The officer was pretty smart........an angry guy with a heavy load can do a lot more damage than a twit in car or pick-up.

Since you understand that, the world is a good place. Of course, you could have called your lawyer and made the officer waste a few days to prove his wisdom to a judge. That may have provided some sense of moral victory to you and allowed your lawyer to buy nicer Christmas gifts for his wife and girlfriend.

I live just north of Terlingua, Texas. Terlingua is the home of a huge international Chili Cookoff. Every November some 10,000 folks in motorhomes, trucks, motorcycles, cars, bicycles, and on foot arrive at one or the other of two sites to party, cook chili, get drunk, cook chili, ride around in ATVs, cook chili, get drunk again, and have a good time. Think huge rally but drunker and more boisterous. This in a rural area with a few hundred local inhabitants.

In the early years there was a lot of drunk driving, lots of accidents, injuries, and a few deaths. As years have passed the presence of the Texas state troopers has increased. We see trooper cars more often in the three peak days of the cookoff than all of the rest of the year combined. There can be 10 or 15 troopers patrolling a few miles of highway. I've seen 5 in 3 miles. Drivers will be stopped for anything! Dirty license plate; your tire hit the white line at the edge of the road; one mph over the limit; you were 10 under and I wondered why; your back window is dirty; etc.

Mostly the locals just stay home while the troopers imported from all over the state do their thing.

But over the years the chiliheads that drink have learned. Now they mostly haul their intoxicants here with them, settle into their encampments, and stay there for the entire cookoff. The rash of drunk driving, accidents, injuries, and deaths doesn't happen any more.

The locals tolerate things but grumble a lot. The input to the local economy is limited because the restaurants and other businesses don't see most of the cookoff folk much- they bring stuff and stay put, and then leave. The stops that would be silly any other time of year are just expected because we know the troopers have invaded south Brewster County.

We think they use seniority when deciding who to send from Dallas, or Houston, or Amarillo, or Dripping Springs, or wherever. We don't get wisend seasoned troopers. We get the young ones whose shoes have never been polished yet, but are still shiny out of the box.

When we do need to go someplace, all in all I'd rather risk a roadside chat than a head-on with a drunk. The troopers would say, "mission accomplished".

Paul Glaves - "Big Bend", Texas U.S.A
"The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution." - Bertrand Russellhttp://web.bigbend.net/~glaves/

I was on Skyline Drive yesterday and had been about 100 yards behind a park ranger for around a mile. Then he pulled over, flipped on his lights, and gave me a lecture about how "those things" can "easily speed." Keep in mind I hadn't broken any laws whatsoever. The he demanded to know how far I intended to ride on Skyline (which wasn't really any of his business) and felt compelled to correct my pronunciation of "Luray."

At the time, I didn't want to get confrontation so I could just continue on, but now that I've stewed about it, I'm considering filing a complaint. I'm a HUGE supporter of law enforcement but the fact is that there is some tiny minority of them who become abusive as a power trip, and this seemed like one.

I would be in hot water at work if I pulled you for "just because". There is case law about traffic stops, there has to be a reason for his stop. I am sorry that you encountered a bad apple. We are not all like that and love motorcycles and motorcyclist.

Wow, that seems like a high threshold. Washington State and especially Oregon don't give that kind of leeway.

That is a pretty common threshold, especially if the officer isn't primarily assigned to traffic enforcement. When I was wearing the badge, I did a lot of years of general patrol (but always being partial to traffic enforcement, made more stops, more tickets, and more DUI arrests then other 'generalists'), before finally spending my last six years on a traffic detail.

When I was working general patrol, I gave everyone 15 over. I always figured that it was pretty hard to argue that much of a violation (it wasn't LOL). Most of my partners did the same. And in spite of that, I still wrote as many tickets as I had time for (as someone else already mentioned). Once I was assigned to traffic, my threshold dropped to about 10 over, simply because I was expected to write more tickets, and I was working a lot more surface streets with lower speed limits.

Now, I routinely set my pedal (or cruise control) at 9 mph over posted, and can drive by CHP officers running laser and through active aircraft speed zones all day long...I have never been stopped. It truly is the discretion of the individual officer, but I have found that here in my area, this works for me (and I commute 100 miles round trip a day).

David W.
Public Safety Professional since 19852007 R1200RTDominus pascit me

trumpetman

Originally Posted by rockbottom

I was on Skyline Drive yesterday and had been about 100 yards behind a park ranger for around a mile. Then he pulled over, flipped on his lights, and gave me a lecture about how "those things" can "easily speed." Keep in mind I hadn't broken any laws whatsoever. The he demanded to know how far I intended to ride on Skyline (which wasn't really any of his business) and felt compelled to correct my pronunciation of "Luray."

At the time, I didn't want to get confrontation so I could just continue on, but now that I've stewed about it, I'm considering filing a complaint. I'm a HUGE supporter of law enforcement but the fact is that there is some tiny minority of them who become abusive as a power trip, and this seemed like one.

Though I realize the importance and dedication of the majority of our law enforcement I too have reached the conclusion that a few are really just bullies and were probably so in high-school. Since getting in a confrontation with one of them is never in our favor I have reached the conclusion it is best to give them that false sense of control they seem to need. So, it is best to choose ones battles carefully.

One time on a Interstate in TexSux I was written for 6 over. No that's not a typo, six miles per hour above the speed limit. It was at night but not the wee hours, weather was clear, traffic was light, the road was straight and level.

In the eleven years that I lived in TexSux I got stopped a good number of times, and received a citation every time except once (Note 1). None were for more than 18-19 over. They ran the gamut from a very kindly and courteous motorcop (Note 2) to some real attitude-cases. At least two were electronically-generated, and in one of those cases the whole stop took less than 30 seconds: no self-incrimination questions, just hand over my license which got swiped through a hand-held device that printed a thermal-paper ticket, sign it and he was gone. One time I got pulled while a big pickup was blatantly passing me at much greater speed (but I was in one a' them lil' socialist furrin' cars though, so I must be evil, right?). That one too was super-quick and efficient, and my boss from out of state was in the car with me and he was SHOCKED that the cop didn't give me a chance to talk him out of the ticket.

In my experience, admitting that I was speeding doesn't make a damn bit of difference- I get the ticket whether I do it or not. (I'm talking everywhere now, not just TX).

I had a BS-stop once too, in suburban evening traffic. Cop told me that my license-plate light was out. He waves his flashlight over my registration and inspection stickers, then shines it in all the windows, sees nothing suspicious, and lets me go. Fishing for probable cause?

I haven't had a speed-citation since moving to GA just over five years ago, although about three years ago in Alabama I got one for following too closely. The trooper pulled me and one other guy in an assembly-line stop for that one, so I really rather suspect that he was hard-up to demonstrate his efficacy to his superiours.

Note 1: The one time I got let-off with a speed-warning in TX I was on a rough-looking, 17-year-old K100RT and passing through the panhandle on the way to Colorado. I was in my mid-30s but looked about 25. The trooper was unusually friendly in his manner, and politely asked if there was anything in my side-cases that should make him feel the need to call for a K9 unit to sniff around. I answered in the negative and he seemed satisfied with my answer.

Note 2: This one was a Kawasaki-mounted member of the Plano TX Police Department and he was just so damned nice about the whole thing that I thanked him for his courtesy (even though I did get the ticket) at the conclusion of the matter, and I guess he wasn't used to that kind of reaction because he seemed to be having an awkward moment as he got back on his bike.

One of my DIL's got stopped in Knxv,TN last week by a city cop there for 5 over, as in actually was 5 over & not a school zone,etc.. She had her two babies(2 & 4) with her in SUV & cold out. Isn't there a higher purpose to be found for that officer?
Maybe it was "anti pre-soccer mom bias"?

"If I had my life to live over, I'd dare to make more mistakes next time...I'd relax,I'd limber up... I would take fewer things seriously...take more chances... take more trips...climb more mountains...swim more rivers...eat more ice cream." Jorge Luis Borges at age 85.

The most obvious problem with law enforcement in this country is its increased militarization in terms of equipment and mentality- and the attitude that comes with it.
Trigger happy behavior is becoming way too common.
Here in NC I have no idea what the total actually is but I can easily recall 3 instances in the last couple months where so called qualified law enforcement officers shot and killed unarmed persons.

Example 1- Brunswick County NC
Mentally ill kid (known schizophrenic) refuses to give screwdriver to mother and acts agitated to the point of scaring her. 2 officers respond and are talking to the kid, no violence happening. Eventually 3rd more senior officer responds and within a minute of arrival, says "we don't have time for this", orders others to taze and jump the kid- then in the resulting pile, claims the kid is threatening the life of one of the first officers and shoots him twice while on the ground under the 2 others. Under investigation. Long line of the rather small (90 lbs, about 16 IIRC) kids relatives and friends say he had no history of violence.

Example 2- Ferrell, Charlotte, NC
Ferrell, black athlete mid 30s, crashes car in small hours of morning in a mostly white area of town (photos show him with a white girlfriend). Runs toward a police officer seeking help and is shot 10 times and killed instead. Officer had apparently spent most of career in animal control and had responded to a 911 call re a possible break in nearby, is now indicted for voluntary manslaughter. Both his dept (immediately) and SBI called his actions excessive.

Example 3- Wilmington NC
Suspect sitting still under a bush while hiding shot and killed by officers claiming he had a gun- which is actually the cell phone he was using. This episode happens a few days after a different person in a nearby neighborhood shoots another officer in the leg and is apprehended a couple days later. No indictments- as in most places NC law allows this as justifiable as long as officer thought/says a threat existed

2 of the above victims were black. All the officers were white.

Bottom line is you could run into one of the nuts above. I believe it is possible to make a case that law enforcement has at least its share of nuts and crooks (we've had folks all the way up to DA indicted locally for all manner of crimes from drug sales to personal use of public funds) and that like most professions is not at all good at internal policing until the evidence of wrongdoing is overwhelming.

My local police force pays wages so low (not even $30K) to newbs that they're always hiring- so the guy with gun you'll run into has almost no experience and probably just can't get a better paying job elsewhere, yet.

Couldn't agree with you more Racer. Many younger law enforcement guys are from the military hence their boot camp hair cuts and Marine Corp in your face threatening PTSD influenced attitude. As a group they are just plain scary. If it weren't for career opportunities in law enforcement many of these so called cops would be on the streets like the hoods they really are. This of course just my humble not worth much opinion.